PERSONALIZED NEWS

When What Was Consumed Was What Was Available

All information is filtered to some degree, and has been from the beginning of time. No one can have access to or understand all of the information that is available for consumption. No one can be everywhere at once. From gossip and rhetoric, to non-networked and networked media, filters are unavoidable and can have both positive and negative effects. Even before traditional media was invented, information was filtered by the individual sharing it. Did their personal rhetoric style have an affect? Did they add their own point of view as they were recalling the information? Were they biased on the issue from the get-go?

Then, with traditional media things got much more complicated. Information wasn’t just passively filtered anymore, it began to be actively filtered by opinion leaders and groups, sponsors (namely, advertisers), sources, public response, sentiment and other ways primarily regarding profits.

Now, in the age of digital media we see personalization to a degree that has never been possible before. Computer algorithms written by the few are dictating the information that is consumed by the masses. And the degree to which this personalization is possible has changed dramatically from THEN to NOW. In fact, even the where we are getting our information is changing dramatically. Take the following as an example.

A Case Study

Recently, Facebook purchased photo-editing application Instagram for $1 Billion. The news was all over social media.

But, rather than searching out an article from an established news organization...

...the news of the purchase was brought to attention through...

Twitter...

and Facebook.

Increasingly, our social networks are telling us what is important - to them - and not surprisingly that is where we are getting much of our information.

So...

"When the news of Facebook acquiring Instagram broke, I knew about it. And I knew about it because my friends knew about it. Even though plenty of other news worthy events happened on the very same day, my filters led me to believe that Facebook's acquisition was the most important event of the day and perhaps, the one that would affect me the most."Frances

In the digital era, personalized news presents news to the user through filters like their social network, their preferences and what their computer has learned about his or her habits and interests. PERSONALIZED NEWS has proved great for quickly finding the news that interests you most. But does THE FILTER BUBBLE have it's downfalls?